NA PvP: Which Server Will You Choose?

I'm interested to see where people intend to pvp on their primary chatacters in NA.

Not since Season 3 on Prophecy of the Five has the East Coast had a viable competitive pvp server with the player base to support it. As we all know, Harbinger has been the de facto hub of swtor pvp for a couple years now.

One thing I was thinking about was how populations on the two coasts would be affected by mergers.

West Coast: Hot Prospect
Harb- Current NA pvp hub, largest ranked participation
BC- Probably has decent regular war zone participation, never played on it
Bastion- Dead

East Coast: Star Forge
Ebon Hawk- 2nd largest pvp base, less ranked participation than Harb
Jedi Covenant- My original server from 2012-2013, once had a number of excellent pvp guilds but now primarily regular warzone participation that is likely less than BC
Shadowlands- Average regular warzone community comparable to JC, small ranked community
Jung Ma- Life support
Pot5- What is dead may never die

Looking at this list from my opinion, the server merger will benefit east coast more than west coast. I believe EH + JC + Shadowlands surpasses Harbinger + BC in regular warzone participation and may be comparable in ranked post-merge. An additional small benefit is EU players will have better ping and time zones to play in on East Coast should they choose to play there.

My personal preference will be East Coast as that's where I live, and it's a matter of 15 m/s versus 130 m/s. I haven't been (cautiously) excited about a swtor patch since the 3.0 era but the prospect of finally being able to return to East Coast with a population that supports a healthy endgame pvp scene is very appealing to me. I would imagine endgame PvE will see a boost as well.

West Coast should still have a very healthy pvp scene (for 2017) but in my experience with prior server merges and character transfers, ranked pvpers tend to gravitate to one server and it will be interesting to see where those chips land.

Yeah, this may hurt Harb (Hot Prospect) a bit. I'm sure there are a good number of people eager to go back to an east coast server. I have no choice. I get 60ms ping on Harb...and I live on the west coast. My east coast ping is in the 200s IIRC.

TBH, if "ranked players" were interested in the most consistent ranked pops, they'd already be on Harb I don't really see that scene changing.

I personally think yolo ranked is cuckcancer and my consistent groupmates aren't consistent enough to really do group ranked because group ranked is not consistent enough to be chased.

That leaves me with regs.

I agree that Starforged looks to have the better warzone participation and people said Ebon Hawk pubs were good (my experience during server transfer did not net those results) so having more pubs to play against would be fun as well.

Locationally, I'm from Texas, I can play either side and get about 40-60ms.

In the end, I'll end up going where my buds go but I'm pretty sure we'll go wherever the best warzone pvp is, unless grouped rank ever becomes consistent in a location that also has consistent warzones.

For me the perfect situation would be for solo ranked to stay popular on Harb, then group ranked and warzones to be more viable somewhere else, just so I could leave those doomases behind.

Yeah, this may hurt Harb (Hot Prospect) a bit. I'm sure there are a good number of people eager to go back to an east coast server. I have no choice. I get 60ms ping on Harb...and I live on the west coast. My east coast ping is in the 200s IIRC.

I think for those of us who live on the west coast it is a no brainer not only for the ping, but east has so many haters.

Hot Prospect will remain the solo ranked hub, but consensus among most PvPers in Discord is that The Star Forge will be the group ranked hub. Regs should be pretty good on Star Forge as well - the imps from JC and Shadowlands vs. Ebon Hawk pubs.

I'll definitely have a presence on both servers and I'm going to see how the shuffle goes but I would much prefer to play on SF as long as the PVP scene there isn't noticeably worse (and I kind of doubt it will be for the reasons y'all have already mentioned). I will be encouraging the few people left in my guild to consider moving there as well.

10 ping instead of 70

I have no particular love for harbinger's pvp community

Sounds like a lot of the players I want to share a server with are also going to SF

Suspect group ranked will be less dead on SF and solo ranked similar enough not to be a problem

No phobos throwing solo ranked games for 6 hours a day

If we get enough momentum to start snowballing SF early we can keep it going and turn the server into, at the very least, an acceptable alternative to harb for pvp pops.

Hot Prospect will remain the solo ranked hub, but consensus among most PvPers in Discord is that The Star Forge will be the group ranked hub. Regs should be pretty good on Star Forge as well - the imps from JC and Shadowlands vs. Ebon Hawk pubs.

Ah interesting insight. I do agree SF could potentially have more balanced factions as you mentioned. The split between solo and group would be somewhat surprising. The few group ranked players left also tend to solo ranked in my experience. Though that may just be because 4s activity is inconsistent typically.

Ah interesting insight. I do agree SF could potentially have more balanced factions as you mentioned. The split between solo and group would be somewhat surprising. The few group ranked players left also tend to solo ranked in my experience. Though that may just be because 4s activity is inconsistent typically.

I could see HP having better solo ranked but I'm not convinced that it *definitely* will just yet. You never know who will start queuing up for solos if they actually pop for them now.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DenariusJay

Oh man, that is a good selling point.

But knowing him, he will find out you guys play at SF and just follow you over there and throw matches.

There is no escaping the Phobos.

I don't really think he cares about throwing games on anyone in particular as long as he's getting his attention fix. And if the number of people in queue is higher (it presumably will be) it will be noticeably less likely to get games in the garbo bracket where he's inevitably at. Assuming you've already got some rating of course...

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The statements and opinions expressed on these websites are solely those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, nor are they endorsed by Bioware, LucasArts, and its licensors do not guarantee the accuracy of, and are in no way responsible for any content on these websites.